Understanding Message Box in Windows Forms using C#

MessageBox control displays a message with specified text. A message box may have some additional options including a caption, icon, and help buttons. In this article, I will discuss how to use the MessageBox class to display messages in Windows Forms and C#.

MessageBox class has an overloaded static Show method that is used to display a message. Here are most of the forms of MessageBox.

Simple MessageBox

The simplest form of a MessageBox is a dialog with a text and OK button. The following code snippet creates a simple MessageBox.

string message = "Simple MessageBox";

MessageBox.Show(message);

 

 

MessageBox with Title

The following code snippet creates a simple MessageBox with a title.

string message = "Simple MessageBox";

string title = "Title";

MessageBox.Show(message, title);

 

MessageBox with Buttons

A MessageBox can have different kinds of button combination such as YesNo or OKCancel. The MessageBoxButtons enumeration represents the buttons to be displayed on a MessageBox and has following values.

• OK
• OKCancel
• AbortRetryIgnore
• YesNoCancel
• YesNo
• RetryCancel

The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with a title and Yes and No buttons. This is a typical MessageBox you may call when you want to close an application. If Yes button is clicked, the application will be closed. The Show method returns a DialogResult enumeration.

string message = "Do you want to close this window?";

string title = "Close Window";

MessageBoxButtons buttons = MessageBoxButtons.YesNo;

 

DialogResult result = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons);

if (result == DialogResult.Yes)

{

    this.Close();

}

else

{

    // Do something

}

MessageBox with Icon

A MessageBox can display an icon on the dialog. A MessageBoxIcons enumeration represents an icon to be displayed on a MessageBox and has following values.

• None
• Hand
• Question
• Exclamation
• Asterisk
• Stop
• Error
• Warning
• Information

The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with a title, buttons, and an icon.

string message = "Do you want to abort this operation?";

string title = "Close Window";

MessageBoxButtons buttons = MessageBoxButtons.AbortRetryIgnore;

 

DialogResult result = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons, MessageBoxIcon.Warning);

if (result == DialogResult.Abort)

{

    this.Close();

}

else if (result == DialogResult.Retry)

{

    // Do nothing

}

else

{

    // Do something

}

 

MessageBox with Default Button

We can also set the default button on a MessageBox. By default, the first button is the default button. The MessageBoxDefaultButton enumeration is used for this purpose and it has following three values.

• Button1
• Button2
• Button3

The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with a title, buttons, and an icon and sets second button as a default button.

string message = "Do you want to abort this operation?";

string title = "Close Window";

MessageBoxButtons buttons = MessageBoxButtons.AbortRetryIgnore;

 

DialogResult result = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons,

    MessageBoxIcon.Warning, MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button2);

if (result == DialogResult.Abort)

{

    this.Close();

}

else if (result == DialogResult.Retry)

{

    // Do nothing

}

else

{

    // Do something

}

MessageBox with Message Options

MessageBoxOptions enumeration represents various options and has following values.

• ServiceNotification
• DefaultDesktopOnly
• RightAlign
• RtlReading

The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with various options.

DialogResult result = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons,

                MessageBoxIcon.Warning, MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button2,

                MessageBoxOptions.RightAlign|MessageBoxOptions.RtlReading);

 

MessageBox with Help Button

A MessageBox can have an extra button called Help button. This is useful when we need to display a help file. The following code snippet creates a MessageBox with a Help button.

DialogResult result = MessageBox.Show(message, title, buttons,

                MessageBoxIcon.Warning, MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button2,

                MessageBoxOptions.RightAlign, true );

 

We can also specify a help file when the Help button is clicked. The following code snippet references a help file.

DialogResult result = MessageBox.Show(message, title,

                buttons, MessageBoxIcon.Question,

                MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1, 0, "helpfile.chm");

 

Summary

In this article, we discussed discuss how to create and use a MessageBox in a Windows Forms application.